Posted on 05/16/2006 10:01:02 AM PDT by NYer
“The Da Vinci Code” has undermined faith in the Roman Catholic Church and badly damaged its credibility, a survey of British readers revealed Tuesday as tensions over — and hype for — the forthcoming film reached a fever pitch.
As its stars off headed to walk the red carpet at Cannes, where the film was set to debut Wednesday before a worldwide release Friday, at least two countries limited the film's release.
The British survey, released by a group of prominent Catholics, revealed that readers of Dan Brown's blockbuster novel are twice as likely to believe Jesus Christ fathered children and four times as likely to think the conservative Catholic group Opus Dei is a murderous sect.
“An alarming number of people take its spurious claims very seriously indeed,” said Austin Ivereigh, press secretary to Britain’s top Catholic prelate Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor. “Our poll shows that for many, many people “The Da Vinci Code” is not just entertainment.”
He heads a prominent collection of English Roman Catholic monks, theologians, nuns and members of Opus Dei, who commissioned the survey from pollster Opinion Research Business (ORB) and have sought to promote Catholic beliefs amid the film’s release.
ORB interviewed more than 1,000 adults last weekend, finding that 60 percent believed Jesus had children by Mary Magdalene — a possibility raised by the book — compared with just 30 percent of those who had not read the book.
The group, which stopped short of following the Vatican line of calling on Catholics to boycott the film, accused Brown of dishonest marketing based on peddling fiction as fact.
Ivereigh complained that Brown and film studio Sony Pictures “have encouraged people to take it seriously while hiding behind the claim that it is fiction.
(Excerpt) Read more at msnbc.msn.com ...
see, it's not just a book and a movie. It's done a lot of damage to the church
oh whoops thanks for the correction
The Protocols of the (Learned) Elders of Zion
_______________________________________________________
Of course...and like the "code" and "last temptation" has done so much damage to the truth.
Nope...
That made him bigger than life....
He was the son of a male god. A man who hung out with men. Who lived a life I couldn't relate to at all.
In the whole Bible I think I can name 3 people that I actually said "I like them!" or at least I could identify with them.
Like I said, for Jesus to be a real man and love a real woman....That would make him real.
Otherwise, he's just a character in a book.
Just not sexually. He wasn't here to spawn a generation of demigods.
SD
All this sound and fury would make a heckuva lot more sense if "Da Vinci" were a well-written book. But it isn't. It is terribly contrived, melodramatic, and often dull. I knew who the real "bad guy" was about 1/2 through, but pushed on to the end because of the work's notoriety. There is something else at issue here far beyond "Da Vinci"'s literary merit, though I really do not know what it is.
I guess I just see it all as something that isn't for me.....I keep hearing of Jesus being 'like me'. Well, he isn't...
I can't relate to him or most of, oh heck, all of the disciples... I'm not talking about 'sex'. I'm talking about him being a real human with real passions and emotions. A celibate rabbi is just another cold man in a cold world.
Ever since I can remember, Jesus has been 'off there', someone different that I had nothing in common with...while Mary M., Salome, Ishtar, Esther were all the characters I felt I 'knew'. Otherwise, it's a man's book for a man's religion.
And lil ole me just sits outside looking in the window, but not finding what I need there.
The Protocols of the Elders of Zion wasn't published as a novel, wasn't sold over the counter as a novel, and was never identified as a novel on its cover, in its pages, or by its putative authors. Rather dissimilar to the book under discussion, to say the least.
I've heard many say that they will use this book and movie as a motivational tool to get people more interested in the Bible. IMO, this is the correct tactic. Trying to get people to shun the movie and damn it's contents, will make some question their faiths and the Church. Personally, indiscretions in the Catholic Church's past have always made me wonder about their legitimacy.
I can't discount your feeling, of course, nor change them. I can only point out two things.
First, the New Testament was not written as a biography or a hagiography. It was written to convey certain teachings and truths, not to make you identify with the characters in some sort of undefined touchy-feely way.
Two, universal truths are supposed to be above accidents of sex, location, or time. If we follow your impulses, then white Irish Americans should feel little empathy with a Semitic carpenter 2000 years ago. And asking Asian women or African hemaphrodites to feel for this "character" also becomes difficult.
Then again, maybe He's not a "character" in a book and we are not supposed to regard truths as male or female, black or white or Asian.
Again, I hope this helps you approach the subject in a different way.
SD
I've gone at in from one direction my whole life-- from birth until just recently....,
that is believing if I kept trying, kept going to church, kept trying to read the bible I would 'get' the point, understand.
But the Bible has always been a very negative book to me....full of the voices of anger, cruelty and bad memories. And what I just posted to you in the last two comments is the most honest I've ever been openly with anyone about my feelings. There is nothing there that makes me say "Hey! They understand! They would side with a scared kid!"
Instead, it's chapter after chapter, book after book of the angry voices, a mad God, and all these reminders of just how evil I am.
Thank you, but believe me when I say that I lost all fear of death and hell when I was told I was evil and hell bound before I could crawl. When God is your demon, you simple lose all fear. One day, it just becomes the shoes you wear.
I'm waiting for the God who isn't mean, isn't angry and actually has nice things to say about scared little girls, women and my gender in general.
When I heard of the gnostic books, the possibility of Mary having a book, or Mary even playing a greater role, chills went down my spine. I actually teared up, there was this flash of hope....that there was a God that understood. I no longer would be on of the damned outsiders looking in, but part of that world that this male God and his Male son ruled. It was the first time I actually felt like I was a 'part' of that great message.
I am serious when I say that all my life, the Bible and the stories has seemed to be for men only, with women being shadows in the background, or worse, the villians, or even worse, bland saints. Whatever those truths are, they were written by someone who didn't know women or like them very much.
So, I quit trying to 'get' what wasn't there for someone like me. You can talk universal truths all you want. But bottom line, we are each individuals, and for some those truths make no sense.
Der Sturmer Buchanan makes the same lame comparison of Elders of Zion to the Da Vinci Code.
As you mention, the Protocols were portrayed as being factual.
Buchanan has gone bonkers recently, says we now live in a "Satanic" society. LOL
Brown isn't calling the book fiction, he's saying it's factual. And that's a lie.
"God save us from bland Saints" - St. Teresa of Avila (1515-1582). Interesting lady.
After watching a couple of the shows that point out Dan Brown's many many many errors, it honestly just sounds like he may be a good writer (I have no idea since I am not giving him or his publisher a penny) but he was really sloppy or lazy. Although he may have done research, it seems like he does nothing to try to make sure his background is at least partially accurate. His mistakes are numerous and very obvious and painful according to the experts. How clever to be thought brilliant when you are actually lazy.
After watching a couple of the shows that point out Dan Brown's many many many errors, it honestly just sounds like he may be a good writer (I have no idea since I am not giving him or his publisher a penny) but he was really sloppy or lazy. Although he may have done research, it seems like he does nothing to try to make sure his background is at least partially accurate. His mistakes are numerous and very obvious and painful according to the experts. How clever to be thought brilliant when you are actually lazy.
"Ear on the ground report" by Barbara Nicolosi posted to Amy Wellborn's blog on the Feast of Our Lady of Fatima. On her own blog, she remarks on the appearance of Ron Howard and his interview.
http://churchofthemasses.blogspot.com/2006/05/poor-ron-howard.html
The buzz on the streets here in Hollywood is that the film is embarrassingly bad. The studio has stirctly limied the MPAA screening - usually about 500-800 people - to only 100 people. No one is getting in to advance screenings which has everybody saying things like, "The only time studios act this way is when they have a Class A Dud on their hands."
The script is a dud. The ultra-weird transitions from people running from long-winded seminars on ecclesiastical history to murderous Opus Dei assassins to Biblical period flashbacks of Jesus and Mary Magdalen looking tenderly at each other made me laugh at loud.
Sony knows they will only have devastating word of mouth on this one. So they have to get everybody in the first weekend.
Posted by: Barb N at May 13, 2006 2:26:15 PM
Anyone who is stupid enough to swallow this tripe and actually let it affect their "faith" wasn't much of a Christian in the first place.......and they sure as ALL hell don't know their own religion (there are fifty ways from Sunday to destroy that stupid book's contentions and claims of 'authenticity').
Um, that website you pointed to is produced by the US Catholic Bishops. In addition, at least 3 cardinals have spoken out against the DVC, several bishops, including French bishops have spoken out against DVC. And the Diocese of Raleigh has a piece by Fr. Garneau about the Judas Gospel which includes a comment on the DVC, but focuses on the Gnostic heresy. Also, the Diocese of Raleigh is promoting Jesus DeCoded.
So the question is: What are you doing in your parish with "The DaVinci Opportunity" as George Weigel calls it?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.